Heart bones is a new adult romance by Colleen Hoover. This isn’t a book review but an actual summary of what happens in the story so keep in mind there will be spoilers ahead.
- Book Title: Heart Bones
- Author: Colleen Hoover
- Publication Date: August 19, 2020
- Category: Contemporary Romance, New Adult Romance
- Print Length: 338 Pages
Beyah and Samson first meet each other on a ferry she takes with her father to visit his new house and family. Samson is taking a picture of the ocean when he sees Beyah taking a piece of bread off the garbage and eating it. He takes a picture of her and she grabs his camera, refusing to give it back. Later, when he sees her again near the restrooms, Samson offers Beyah some money but she refuses to take them not knowing what his intentions are.
Beyah’s mother had died the previous day from a meth overdose and this is the reason she decides to visit her father after so long without even telling him that her mom had died. Her father, who was absent her whole life, was sending them some money that Beyah never saw, and calling every now and then to see how she is. He is now married and richer than he had ever been. Beyah on the other hand has only a backpack that has her all belongings, and she has been raised in misery, forced to spend time with a man she despised accepting his money so she could survive. She had taken care of herself from a young age since her mother was a drug addict and neglected her.
On the first day in her dad’s house, Beyah meets his new wife and her daughter Sara, who happens to be Samson’s best friend’s girlfriend. Beyah realizes that when they all gather to have dinner together as she understands they do this often.
The same night Beyah, Samson, Sara, and her boyfriend go to Walmart so Beyah can buy a few things that she needs including a phone. Samson takes her new phone to enter their phone numbers and sets her alarm on so she can watch the sunrise the next day – something that she never did as she said to him when he asked her, talking about his photographs of nature. Beyah realizes that her alarm is on only when it rings early in the morning. She gets out on her balcony and sees Samson on his (right across the street). They watch the sunrise alone and together – something that later becomes a habit.
The next day they all meet at the beach where Samson and Beyah get to know each other a little bit better but he seems to have a lot of things that he prefers to keep secret. Actually, the only thing about himself that he tells her is that he lives alone in one of his dad’s beach houses and that he is about to live in August, just like she is going to leave because of her volleyball scholarship.
Beyah finds a stray dog that starts following her a few days later. She also finds Samson on the roof of another house and he asks her to go up there so they can watch the sea. He admits that this is the house of an old woman that lives alone and he helps sometimes with some stuff around the house. He also tells her that this place reminds him of a man he knew that was lost in a tornado a few years ago and no one ever found him.
Meeting up on the beach again, Beyah and Samson continue playing question games inside the water, to which Samson again answers only a few that don’t actually tell a lot about him. Beyah’s leg gets stung by a jellyfish and he carries her outside to the nearest outdoor shower that he knows has some vinegar for this purpose. When they get there he squeezes the vinegar on her leg and she screams loudly in pain, so much that her father actually thinks that Samson was doing something inappropriate and hits him to protect his daughter. When the whole misunderstanding is resolved he apologizes to the young man and unexpectedly asks Beyah if she needs any help from her new stepmother to make an appointment and get her the pill. Beyah feels uncomfortable talking about her sex life with her father and her new wife, people that she doesn’t even know so well but she also thinks that her mother never even asked her if she needed anything let alone a pill so she can be sexually active.
Beyah visits Samson’s house later to see how he is after her dad hit him. There one leads to another and he kisses her but their kiss doesn’t last long because she feels overwhelmed and runs to the balcony for some fresh air. She later confesses to him her story of how she had never had a real boyfriend and how the first guy that forcibly kissed her was one of her mother’s boyfriends.
The next day Beyah wakes up to see the sunrise again but going out on her balcony she finds Samson there pointing at his elbow that he just had hurt jumping from his balcony to hers. They watch the sunrise together but when the time comes for Samson to leave they decide it’s too early for anyone to be awake so he could just leave using the front door. Unfortunately, Beyah’s dad is in the kitchen and sees them, thinking that they have spent the night together but once Samson is gone they talk and clear things up.
A few days later the two couples visit a restaurant because Beyah admits that she had never tasted seafood. While they are eating a stranger approaches and calls Samson the name Shawn. They walk away to talk obviously knowing each other well, and when Samson is back on the table Sara starts questioning him. Beyah takes him out of his uncomfortable position because she knows how much he hates talking about himself.
Going on a beach walk Beyah, Samson, and the dog that follows them around find some bones that they soon realize are human bones. Beyah reminds Samson of the story about the man that got lost in the tornado and if that could be his but Samson’s mood changes very unexpectedly and he says Beyah should leave while he digs out the bones and throws them in the sea, refusing to call the police and see if it was a missing person.
Beyah finds three guys playing beach volleyball some days later and she goes to play with the feeling that she missed playing after all this time she was living there. Samson sees her playing with the guys and at first disappears in his house again making her believe that he is jealous. But a few minutes later he comes out again holding a chair and goes to sit and watch her play, yelling her name and encouraging her, as she had mentioned that no one ever did.
That same day both of them decide they should get a tattoo – not a couple’s tattoo but just something they want for themselves. After announcing it to her father, Beyan goes with Samson to have a tattoo. He has lost his ID but Sara and her boyfriend help him get one from a friend of theirs that he looks like and he can use it to get his tattoo. Trying to decide what to do, Beyah and Samson agree on picking each other’s tattoos without seeing them before they are done. Samson picks a colorful windmill for Beyah, and she picks a tornado for him. Thankfully they both love their new tattoos and feel even closer now that they picked something so permanent for the other one.
Beyah asks her father if she can spend the night with Samson across the street and after a lot of convincing from both her and Sarah’s mom, he agrees. Beyah visits Samson later that night and he changes the rule that he had set – telling her all about him the day before they leave in August, to telling her everything she needs to know the next day. They make love for the first time and fall asleep.
Beyah is woken up by a police officer and sees Samson being arrested. Not understanding anything she asks for her father and when he goes there, the police start asking her questions about who Samson is and how they know each other explaining that this isn’t his house and that he was breaking the laws living in it while the family that owned was away.
Going to the police station in the middle of the night for further questions, Beyah finally admits to her father that her mom had died the day before she called him. He apologizes for never being there for her because he realizes that she needed someone other than her mom to raise her. But he also refuses to help with anything that has to do with Samson, saying that he is a criminal while Beyah pleases him explaining that she knows him well enough to trust him.
Going back home Beyah finds Samson’s backpack that she asked to be taken home with the one she brought to his house the previous night. She opens it and finds many poems written about him by his father and as she reads them, she realizes that the man that got lost in the tornado in Samson’s story was his father and this is why he was so upset when they found the human bones.
Later, Samson is sentenced to 4 years in jail. She visits him as soon as she can but there he tells her to stop visiting and not waste her time waiting for him. She wants to stay back for him but he insists on her going to Pennsylvania for her scholarship and living her life as she is supposed to.
Beyah decides to leave her volleyball scholarship after all and become a lawyer instead because she is so disappointed by the laws that don’t understand how Samson, a poor boy that lived on his own since a child and helped everyone around him, had to live somewhere. She also finds the son of the old lady that Samson was helping for free every now and then. He is also a lawyer and helps her a lot by becoming Samson’s lawyer and guiding her through her studies and becoming a lawyer herself.
When the 4 years are finished, Beyah waits outside of the jail doors for Samson to be released. He can’t believe she is actually there and the first thing he asks her before he even reaches her is if she went to college. She tells him all about college and her life over the past 4 years, and how she followed his wish to live her life and have fun but after all that she wanted to be there for him. She also tells him that Sara and her boyfriend had gotten married and expected their first baby soon.
Beyah drives Samson to the beach and even though it’s winter he takes off his clothes and goes for a swim after so long. Once he is out they remember they have to call his lawyer and when they do he announces that his mother has left her house in Samson’s name before she died.
Life and a dismal last name are the only two things Beyah’s parents ever gave her. After carving her path all on her own, Beyah is well on her way to bigger and better things, thanks to no one but herself. With only two short months separating her from the future she’s built and the past she desperately wants to leave behind, an unexpected death leaves Beyah with no place to go during the interim.
Forced to reach out to her last resort, Beyah has to spend the remainder of her summer on a peninsula in Texas with a father she barely knows. Beyah’s plan is to keep her head down and let the summer slip by seamlessly, but her new neighbor Samson throws a wrench in that plan.
Samson and Beyah have nothing in common on the surface.
She comes from a life of poverty and neglect; he comes from a family of wealth and privilege. But one thing they do have in common is that they’re both drawn to sad things. Which means they’re drawn to each other.
With an almost immediate connection too intense for them to continue denying, Beyah and Samson agree to stay in the shallow end of a summer fling. What Beyah doesn’t realize is that a rip current is coming, and it’s about to drag her heart out to sea.
One Response
I’m not really a big Colleen Hoover fan. To be honest I think she’s so overhyped on TikTok it’s ridiculous. But after reading this I’m totally going to pick this book up!